Iron Man Extreme

Last week at chemo Charlie took the round stickers given to him by nurses and put them on his hands and feet and proceeded to play Iron Man. If you look close in the picture above you can see the "rocket" stickers on his shoes.

Summer School Pictures

As Aunt Lisa says, "They capture the moment." I wonder what the moment right before the photo shoot was like for Charlie. Probably not good. The moment for Daniel, hum-drum.

Summer School Pictures

Cancer: A Cost Analysis

So, one of the more enjoyable aspects of Charlie’s treatment (only because all you can do is laugh) are the medical bills. Each one holds a cornucopia of surprises, grimaces, laughs and outright hilarity. The latest coming from Charlie’s first lumbar puncture of the year on January 3rd (yes, we just got the bill for that). This visit included, but was not limited to: accessing Charlie’s port, propofol to put him under, spinal fluid withdrawal, intrathecal methotrexate injection, vincristine injection, plus room occupation and 5 hours of time with a mixture of about 10 different professionals. All of this for the low, low cost of around $3,000 (billed to insurance). “Not too bad!” you might say. And I would whole-heartedly agree, especially considering that they are saving my kid’s life.

The fun comes when you examine some of the line-item costs from this visit:

$17.53 - for one Tegaderm
$18.53 - for the butterfly 22g needle
$552.66 - for Vincristine
$718.43 - for IT Methotrexate
$1200 - for the use of the room



Now, the picture above is a Tegaderm patch. It is, for all intents and purposes a band-aid. We use them to apply a numbing cream to Charlie’s port before he is accessed and the hospital uses them to hold his “butterfly” needle in place after access. Handy little things, tegaderms are. Not so sure they are worth $17.53 though. Let us examine . . .

Charlie’s medications for this visit are worth about 31 and 41 tegaderms for vincristine and methotrexate, respectively. That seems like a bargain to me.

The room rate for Charlie’s visit, a measly 68 tegaderms.

In fact, I know from experience that I can feed a family of four (two adults and two kids, aged 4 and 1) at McDonalds for the price of one tegaderm. Somebody get Sally Struthers on the phone.

And assuming that one tegaderm weighs about 3 grams, I get a commodity price of around $180 per troy ounce of tegaderm. That places it at more than a tenth of the price of gold and about 4.5 times the price of silver. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to put tegaderm in my 401K.

After one of Charlie’s appointments a while back, a nurse handed us a sweaty wad of tegaderms to have at the house so we can numb Charlie’s port before clinic and ER visits. Had I known then what I know now, I would have turned around and sold the tegaderms back to the hospital for $15 a piece (a 15% savings for them) and funded Charlie’s next appointment. Live and learn.

Summer Trip to Tyler

We packed up the family, kids, dogs, tons of bags and medical supplies, and headed down to Tyler for the July 4th week. Despite the 16 hours in the car each way, we had a relaxing and fun-filled vacation. Daniel was finally introduced to many of his cousins on the Hickerson side and spent quality time with "Great." The highlight for the kiddos was probably the afternoons spent at Willowbrook pool. Mom and Dad enjoyed their evening at Julian's with Andy, Courtney, Kim, Peyton, Matt and Martha; and the pups.... let's just say they were happy to be included in the trip and even happier to come home to Denver where it was 20 degrees cooler!

A funny tidbit.. We waited till we were in Tyler to tell everyone about the gender of the new baby. We coached Charlie in the car all of the way to Texas. It was his job to spill the beans when prompted. When we arrived in Tyler Saturday evening, we sat down in the living room with Grandmommy, Granddaddy, and Great. Grandmommy started asking Charlie,
"So are you going to have a little brother or a little sister?"

Charlie completely clammed up. He was NOT going to talk about it! So Grandmommy changed her tactics,
"Is the new baby's name.. David?"

"Noooo!" replied Charlie.
"Is the new baby's name.. Henry?" She tried again.
"Noooo!" replied Charlie.
"Is the new baby's name.. Ann?" Said Grandmommy.
"No---YES!" Charlie replied as he smiled!

Mom and Dad confirmed that the new baby was indeed a girl and we intend on naming her Ana (or Sunshine Daydream, depending on the mood). It was a hysterically funny interchange between Charlie and Grandmommy. One I'm sure we will remember forever!

Click on the photo above to see how much fun we had!

Baby Hooper - It's a girl!

We are very excited to share the news. Charlie and Daniel will welcome a new baby sister later this fall. Baby Ana Hooper should arrive on Nov. 20th.